Dust N' Bones

American Pale Ale

Named after the well known Guns N' Roses song, "Dust N' Bones" was a one-off batch that got me hooked on beer brewing. Despite being already packed with American hops, half of this was also dry hopped with Romanian wild hops as an experiment.

My first ever all-grain beer, this was quite the adventure to brew. Having done plenty of research beforehand, I built myself a DIY mash tun out of a water cooler and fitted it with a proper metal tap and copper pipe bottom drain for filtering out the wort from the grains. This enabled me to mash enough grains so that I would end up with about 10l worth of beer once it was all said and done. Using an online recipe, I did everything by the book right up until the point when I decided to experiment with some wild hops I picked up on my last visit home in Romania. The hop cones were already half dried but still had enough yellow lupulin in them to give my beer that extra personal touch. I even saved a bottle for about 8 month to see how the taste would change over time. By that point any hoppiness was already long gone, but the beer itself tasted almost like a barley wine; very piney and even with hints of honey.

The Artwork

What started off as just a way for me to put my new ink markers to the test, ended up being the first of many hand illustrated beer labels. This was the moment I decided I want to expand my illustrating skills and learn more about how I could use ink to add more depth and detail to my artwork, trying out different things until I would have my own established style.